About Sociology

Sociology Department Offerings

The Sociology Department at Hunter College offers a solid general sociology curriculum. The department is distinctive due to its many undergraduate courses that prepare students for an advanced degree in Social Work or Social Policy, and the unique Graduate Program in Social Research including the Five Year BA/MS in Social Research option.

BA in Sociology

A major in sociology requires that a student take a set of required courses no matter what exactly his/her career plans are. Beyond that, students should choose their electives carefully, in view of what they want to do after obtaining the bachelor's degree.

Sociology provides several answers to this important question:

The undergraduate degree provides a strong college foundation for entry-level positions throughout the human services, government, and business sectors.

Employers look for people with the skills that an undergraduate education in sociology provides, especially knowledge of social groups, norms and culture, organizations, and analytical and statistical skills.

Many students choose sociology because they see it as a strong base for professions such as law, education, medicine, social work, counseling, and social services administration. Sociology provides a rich fund of knowledge that directly concerns each of these fields.

A BA in sociology is excellent preparation for future graduate work in sociology in order to become a program planner, evaluation researcher, professor, applied sociologist, human services administrator, sociomedical researcher, or policy analyst.

You can find out more about these and other career options in the pamphlet 'Careers in Sociology, ' available in the Sociology Advising Office (room HW1619). You may also like to speak with an undergraduate advisor.

The Graduate Program in Applied Social Research

Applied social research is a fast moving field with challenging, creative, and well-paid positions in numerous public and private-sector fields including market research, media, policy analysis, program planning and evaluation, and sociomedical research. Hunter College offers a unique program leading to the MS in Social Research degree, providing a strong foundation for a career in research and related areas. Our program, now more than 25 years old, has an outstanding employment record in both the public and private sectors, and is highly regarded by area research professionals. Our graduates work as research directors, data analysts, and consultants for organizations like ABC, Children's Television Workshop, Cornell University Medical College, Lifetime Television, McCann-Erickson Worldwide, National Development and Research, The National Urban League, The New York Times, and Young and Rubicam.

Designed to accommodate working students (all courses are offered at night) the 45-credit course of study can be completed on a part-time basis in three years. The MS degree leaves open the option of a PhD. Alumni from our program have gone on to enter doctoral programs at Columbia University, the CUNY Graduate Center, Rutgers, and SUNY, to name a few recent destinations.

MA (MS) or PhD in Sociology

Apart from PhD-level university jobs, very few people with sociology degrees work as "sociologists." Instead, the research, analysis and writing skills that we practice are essential parts of many diverse fields within and beyond the social sciences.

People with advanced sociology degrees (such as Hunter's MS in Social Research) enter the business, not-for-profit, and government worlds as directors of research, policy analysts, consultants, human resource managers, and program managers.

Practicing sociologists with advanced degrees may be called research analysts, survey researchers, gerontologists, statisticians, urban planners, community developers, criminologists, or demographers.

Some MA and PhD sociologists obtain specialized training to become counselors, therapists, or program directors in social service agencies.

Sociologists also become professors, teaching in colleges and universities, advising students, conducting research, and publishing their work.